Ain't it punny.

I believe I love puns more than I ought to. There is quite the skill behind them and once it is mastered - by God (as my dad says, by the way I find that I talk more and more like him), they are pretty damn hysterical.

I received my edits back for my first draft of a story I'm working on about campus blood drives. My editor insisted on saying bloody fabulous and bloody brilliant the whole way through. I thought it was simply marvelous - mostly because the joke didn't occur to me at first because sometimes he's cheesy and foreign and says things like that. But when it hit me, I laughed and laughed and laughed...

Make fun of me all you want. I don't care.

You know what else I enjoy but hate a little bit at the same time? Irony.

Just as I've declared a different major, I finally deeply enjoy two whole weeks worth of Panther work. Amazing how the forces of the world find my incessant confusion absolutely hilarious. But no worries. Despite the fact that I have very much enjoyed the work I've done and the success I've had with actually impressing my editor, I still am confident with how I want my life to be.

Journalism is not a career, it is a lifestyle. And frankly, as much as I want to love my career and be dedicated to it, I am in no way planning on putting it before everything else in my life. Being a journalist requires just that. I actually very much enjoy leaving journalism on a happy note because I have proven to myself that I CAN do it - I am fully capable of being a successful journalist. I just don't love it enough to actually be one. I have the utmost respect for journalists and they are people who should be highly revered (only the honest and ethical ones of course). However, I have realized that I can no longer base my life's choices on the love of the IDEA of being a journalist. I have to base it on all the things that require me to actually be one. It's the difference between "I want to be that" and "I want to do that."

When I think of all the possibilities of my Art degree, I see the difference. I start thinking of all the jobs I could have and I get all sorts of excited about doing the work. With journalist career paths, I only ever got excited about being the journalist, the educator, the writer.

That was never clear to me before and I'm ecstatic beyond belief that I realized this.

And the feeling of it all? An uplifting freedom that I can only explain with one of my favorite Ryan McGinley photographs...

'Tis true.

Pain is my creativity's drive.

I blamed my lack of creativity on Journalism which isn't entirely untrue, but is, I've realized, definitely not entirely true.

I can't write anything because I have been living a robotic and slightly mundane life for the past 6 months. I'm not terribly sad, and I'm not ecstatically happy. I just am. I have happier days and I have sadder days, but nothing overwhelming. I blame part of my robotic ways on Journalism because, conversationally, reporting is an entirely different stand alone social skill that makes any other emotion and social skill drier and duller the more journalistic one becomes.

Aside from a couple memories here and there, I feel like I haven't been living. Nothing really effects me. And I don't mean that it in a way that says I'm some strong confident woman. I mean that I'm emotionally dead with the exception of my constant self doubt and stress about how capable I am.

Because of all this, I've had nothing to write about--nothing to make me want catharsis or even simple contemplation. I thought it was a good time in life that I was finally stable and okay with everything and not letting anything drive my hopes up or drive me down into a deep dark hole. But now that I have fallen into an old state, I realize that where I was, although good in the sense that I would prefer to feel nothing than what I'm feeling right now, it was a dry spell--one in which Dana is simply nothing and apathetic.

To be honest, I wish I was still as apathetic as I have been for the past 6 months. But alas, I've reverted to a previous state of mind.

All my terrible experiences and the way people have treated me in the past has, I'm starting to believe, made me incapable of being close with someone. The more I think about it the more impossible I think it all is. The idea of me meeting someone and letting myself be close with him and having him be someone I can actually be with--it's just--fuck, I don't understand how it would ever happen.

It's all just an entirely baffling, sick and twisted, darkly humorous idea.
Being robotic and empty is so much easier than knowing you actually have a heart--and a tattered one at that.

You bastard.

Journalism, you have taken away all my creative writing, mainly poetic, abilities.

I haven't had a single dawning of poetic, creative impulse for months and it feels so strange. I'm like this...robotic deliverer of information. I think it's because I haven't been reading for a long time. I also think it's because since I've been so wrapped up in school, I've been void of any deep emotions.

I find that really interesting because this semester has an emotional train wreck, but in a way I've never experienced before. It's a train wreck that I cry over for an hour and then realize I need to shut the hell up and get my shit done--stop thinking things over and just keeping working.

Normally, anything that comes over me is long, thoughtful, and causes me to dwell and analyze. I can't decide which one is better because both have good and bad things. On the one hand, I'm moving forward, but on the other hand, I'm a bit void and severely lacking in the what makes me draw and write. And I don't know whether I've changed or my experiences have changed.

I want my drawing and poetic drive back.

On another note, spring break next week is going to be so lame and uneventful. I'm going to be at work and in the MAC lab at school 24/7. Hot damn, I can't wait for summer.

Rhetorical inquiry.

Why the hell do people think they can come and go as they please?

If you want in on my life, then be in it.

If you want out, then stay the fuck out.

A dark night....without a knight.

Where's a lighthouse when you need one?

It's just too fun!

After a week of utter hell dealing with the spawns of Satan in various experiences this week, I think I deserve a little happiness.

I had fun last nigth at Roula's house with my darling sista, and then we decided to spend the night after realizing we were far too exhausted to drive. It is now 2:20 pm and we are still here. Haha, and Roula's husband had some colored eye contacts so I said...WHY THE HELL NOT?

I totally have green eyes and I think I'm going to stick with this for a while. They look pretty real and I feel fine without make up on. Hahah. OH! so. FUN.

Hah, it felt so strange at first, but I totally don't even notice them anymore.

Now I guess we're waiting for Roula to come back from work and we might hang out. I just need a fun fucking night after the week I've had. I've decided, that the majority of people are not only dumb and selfish, but also completely rude, inconsiderate, and MEAN. The only service they provide is making the nice people in life seem like a blessing from God himself. And they make one's friends and family seem like angels....ANGELS I TELL YOU! ANGELS!

Hah, ah dear. I love Sarah Sayeed. I love Sarah Quadri. And apparently I was not the only Quadri crying her eyes out yesterday. When she picked me up from school to go out, I asked her if she had any concealer so I didn't look like a train wreck, and she was like..."No, but I wish I had some after all the crying I did today." And then I was like "OH MY GOD ME TOO!!!" And then the venting pursued. Haha. Sisters. They're great. They are my best friends...of all time. And I have 3 of them. Tamara, Sarah Q., and Sarah S.

Das righhh beetches.

Oh poopy day.

I love you rain, but not when I have to carry around my camera.

Period. Cramps. Lots of homework. Stressful driving. No money. Lots of debt. Expensive books. Expensive photo supplies. Hungry as hell.

Well atleast people are being really nice and my family made up for a shitty birthday by making the rest of the weekend fan-fucking-tastic. I definitely should have stayed home yesterday to do all the homework that I now have to do today on top of a bunch of other shit, but it was well worth it.

And now for the Panther...

Hm.

I want to look into this.

http://www.alivemagazine.org/index.php

My faith in the art of writing.

I'm reading two books on the Qur'an at the moment:

The Story of the Qur'an by Ingrid Mattson

Understanding the Islamic Scripture by Mustansir Mir

When I sit down in this intellectual setting to study a book that gives me my name, Muslim, and way of life, Islam, I'm astonished at how it fits me perfectly. Here is a response I wrote for the first set of reading.

Religious texts are not just a dull list of Do’s and Do Not’s. One can clearly recognize that as the word of a magnificent, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent creator, it will be nothing short of beautiful. This is a very invigorating and attractive side to the Qur’an that I have absorbed thus far. It is not just text. It is literature and poetry and symbolism and metonymy and metaphor lying in between two human palms.

The name of the book itself stresses that it is that which is read and that which is recited. From the reading this week, I have felt that because of the fact that it is read and recited, with rhyme and meter and various literary techniques, it becomes this work that people want to hear and say. It is because of this that it can be memorized and stored to memory so quickly and for so long. Hearing just the first word of a momentarily forgotten surah can jog the memory instantly, and suddenly, the entire surah is being recited.

I believe that because of this literary stronghold, just as with a novel or work of ancient epic poetry, there is more to the writing than what is directly stated. Just as we analyze characters and find symbolism in novels, or search for the various meanings each word can provide in poetry, such is what begs for from the writings of the Qur’an. Mustansir Mir explains a similar idea when he discusses how the Qur’an is declared by some scholars to be a disconnected text. He then explains how this is not true and how this is merely a misguided approach to the scripture.

Although the arrangement of surahs seems non-cohesive, there is a strong employment of metonymy. Certain ideas and stories, when put next to each other, take on different meanings and form interesting connections. Mir says, “the alleged case for the ‘disconnectedness’ of the Qur’an is overstated.”

Another aspect of the emphasis towards the literary aesthetic and literary skills that I found to be a theme is that it had a dualism of having adhered to the respected oral tradition of the time while it cultivated literacy. The pre-Islamic Arabs recited poetry with a revered sophistication, just as the huffaz did and still do with the Qur’an. It kept this tradition while bringing literate culture.

Aside from the obvious beliefs in the oneness of God and “right belief” and “right conduct,” I found that the importance of this theme of developed and beautiful language was very common and provides an interesting backbone to the scripture, how it was delivered, and how it is received to this very day. There is definitely something to be said for such a beautiful piece of writing coming from a region of nearly illiterate people. That alone has a divine presence.





I mean seriously, what better book to believe in that has everything I love: creativity and symbolism and poetic devices and rhyme and meter and stories. Not only that but Suraht il Fil (surah of the elephant) depicts this beautiful elephant that withstood beatings and suffereing because it refused to destroy the Ka'ba and Islamic stronghold.

HELLO! Who has loved and found this spiritual wisdom and beauty in elephants almost obsessively? ME, that's who. Reading these books is so great. There are so many facts and ideas I never knew that it is only strengthening my love for my faith.

Stivali nuevi

My mood is very strange. All I want to do is blast pop music and play dress up with my new boots. I haven't left the house in over 36 hours and I'm totally okay with that. This has never happened to me before. I don't want to go out and I don't care to see anyone but my family right now. Strange days.

I have had this complete loss of caring about socializing. I really don't care to at all. I figure, I'll talk to people at school, I'll see people when they call me to hangout, but I have no inclination to call people and make plans.

I think it's just that I'm so absolutely tired of being people's bitch. That's about as crudely as I can put it, but it kind of feels that way. I'm always the one to call everyone and make plans and chase after people and do everything I can to be friends and make them like me and I've just come to this point where I DON'T GIVE A SHIT. I have my family and I'm happy. I don't care about finding time for friends all the time and being held responsible for doing so, especially when they don't find time for me. I REALLY don't care about making new friends or trying to hang out with school friends that just don't care to call or see me. I'm just so over it. If I'm not crazy about you, then I don't give a shit. I'm sick of constantly waiting for people to let me in and constantly trying to be their friends. I'm just going to start going with my instincts, if I feel the person cares and is worth it, then yeah, but most people these days are just not.

Tamara really has always had the right idea of relationships and people in general. Why haven't I modeled her theories earlier? I could have avoided so much rejection, hurt, stupidity, and just generally letting people get away with treating me like shit. I always make fun of her for not having any friends, but you know what? The few she does have are REAL and actually love and care about her so much. Things are always 100% honest and comfortable. She doesn't bother with the tons of people that just don't understand what it is to be a good friend. I have bothered for too long, and I officially dub this the weekend when Dana stopped giving a fuck.

Good day.

-Dana